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“Caged Bird” Introduction
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"Caged Bird" was published in Maya Angelou's 1983 poetry collection Shaker, Why Don't You Sing? The poem describes the opposing experiences between two birds: one bird is able to live in nature as it pleases, while a different caged bird suffers in captivity. The latter bird sings both to cope with its circumstances and to express its own longing for freedom. Using the extended metaphor of these two birds, Angelou paints a critical portrait of oppression in which she illuminates the privilege and entitlement of the un-oppressed, and conveys the simultaneous experience of suffering and emotional resilience. In particular, the poem's extended metaphor can be seen as portraying the experience of being a Black person in America.
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“Caged Bird” Summary
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A free bird flies on the wind, as if floating downstream until the wind current shifts, and the bird dips its wings in the orange sunlight, and he dares to call the sky his own.
But a bird that moves angrily and silently in a small cage can barely see through either the cage bars or his own anger His wings are cut so he cannot fly and his feet are tied together, so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings fearfully of things he does not know, but still wants, and his song can be heard from as far away as distant hills, because the caged bird sings about freedom.
The free bird thinks about another breeze, and about the global winds that blow from east to west and make the trees sound as if they are sighing, and he thinks of the fat worms waiting to be eaten on the lawn in the early morning light, and he says he owns the sky.
But a caged bird stands on the grave of his own dead dreams, and his dream-self screams from the nightmares he has. His wings are trimmed down and his feet are tied, so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings fearfully of things he does not know, but still wants, and his song can be heard from as far away as distant hills, because the caged bird sings about freedom.
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“Caged Bird” Themes
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Oppression and the African-American Experience
The poem describes a "caged bird"—a bird that is trapped in a “narrow cage” with limited mobility, only able to sing about the freedom it has never had and cannot attain. This caged bird is an extended metaphor for the Black community's past and ongoing experience of racism in the United States in particular, and can also be read as portraying the experience of any oppressed group. The metaphor captures the overwhelming agony and cruelty of the oppression of marginalized communities by relating it to the emotional suffering of the caged bird.
The poem uses the metaphor of the bird to capture not just the way that oppression imposes overt physical limitations on the oppressed, but also the way that those limitations emotionally and psychologically impact the oppressed. For instance, in lines 10-11 the poem states that the caged bird "can seldom see through his bars," which seems at first as if the poem is going to explain how being in the cage limits the bird's line of sight. But instead, the poem further describes the bars as being "bars of rage"—the bird is imprisoned and certainly the physical bars of the cage limit its line of sight, but the bird can "seldom see" because these conditions make the bird blind with rage. By fusing the limits imposed by the cage with the emotional impact those limits inspire, the poem makes clear that the environment and the anger can't be separated from one another. The oppression of the cage doesn’t just keep the bird captive; the captivity changes the bird, and in so doing robs the bird of its very self.
As an extended metaphor used to convey the pain of the oppression faced by Black people throughout (and before) the history of the United States, aspects of the poem can be read as directly related to that particular experience. For instance, the caged bird's song can be seen as an allusion to Black spirituals. As abolitionist Frederick Douglass once said, “Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy." Additionally, Angelou’s image of the “caged bird” is one borrowed from a poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar, “Sympathy,” which states, “I know why the caged bird sings, ah me […] / it is not a carol of joy or glee [...]” What both Dunbar and Douglass are saying is that the oppressed sing not because they are happy, but because they are unhappy. The cause of the caged bird’s song explicitly mirrors Douglass and Dunbar's insights: though the song is full of the hope of freedom, the fact that the caged bird can only hope of freedom makes clear that it lacks that freedom. The song may be full of hope, but it is born from a place of deep pain, and the hope can be seen as primarily an attempt to cope with an intolerable situation.
The poem's point about the bird's song springing from sadness is critically important, because, historically, many defenders of slavery and other forms of oppression argued that the song and dance that was a part of Black American culture indicated that Black people were in fact joyful and content with their situation. The idea that such music might be an expression of cultural or emotional pain was ignored (in large part because ignoring it meant that those who benefitted from such oppression could also justify the oppression as not being oppressive at all).
"Caged Bird" actively and explicitly disputes the notion that the musical expression of an oppressed group is a sign of contentment. It is instead an assertion that the opposite is true. In making such an assertion, the poem refuses to bend to the convenient and racist interpretation of African-American song by white oppressors and instead asserts that the anguish forced on Black communities by white oppression must be acknowledged.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 8-14
- Lines 15-22
- Lines 27-38
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Freedom vs. Captivity
The poem “Caged Bird” compares and contrasts the experience of a free bird with that of a bird held in captivity. While part of this contrast is meant to convey the injustice forced upon the captive bird, the comparison also allows the poem to explore how a free being thinks and acts, and to argue that freedom is a natural state for living beings. As an extended metaphor for the historical oppression of Black people in the United States, the idea that freedom is a human’s natural state of existence further demonstrates the cruelty and injustice of racism. The caged bird’s longing for freedom also demonstrates the Black community's resilience against this oppression.
The poem's first key insight about freedom pertains to what a free being is allowed to think about. Putting that more concretely: because the free bird is, well, free, it never has to think about its own freedom. Instead, the free bird spends its time living, and doing what it wants. When the free bird thinks, it is only of “another breeze” or “fat worms.” Thus, for the free bird, freedom is natural, subconscious. The free bird never has to think about freedom. It simply is free.
It is also worth noting the ways in which freedom gives the free bird a sense of entitlement: the speaker notes in line 7 that the free bird “dares to claim the sky,” as its own, and repeats this sentiment later in line 26. Despite all the freedom the bird already has, it continues to seek more from the world—it sees its freedom as naturally implying that it should “own” the world. It is difficult not to see this insight as referring more broadly to the way that free people, such as slaveholders in the American pre-Civil War South, saw their own freedom—and the lack of freedom of the Black people they owned—as indicating that their ownership of their slaves was how things should be. They saw their freedom, rather than a privilege or a natural right, as a signal that they should own everything else.
The caged bird, on the other hand, because it lacks freedom, spends all of its time thinking and singing about freedom. Much like breathing, freedom is experienced as something that is only thought of when it is no longer there. When one can breathe freely, there is no need to think about it—however, when one can’t breathe, of course, it becomes the only thing one can think of. In this way, the poem makes clear the emotional and even intellectual exhaustion that comes from a lack of freedom, the way it creates a prison not just for a physical body but also for the mind.
The caged bird, unlike the free bird, is completely immobilized—not only is the bird held captive in a cage, but its wings are clipped and its feet tied; thus, even if the bird were to escape his cage, he would still be unable to move or fly. The total immobilization of the caged bird is likely representative of the layers of discrimination a marginalized person can face, from overt and official policies of slavery and discrimination, to racially-motivated violence, to being written out of history or culture. The caged bird, being tied and clipped, seems to represent the ways oppression not only imprisons individuals and communities, but also how it seeks to limit them in ways that can then be used to justify their imprisonment: for instance, a bird with clipped wings and bound feet couldn’t possibly survive outside a cage, so the person who put it there can then justify keeping the bird in the cage to keep it safe. The imprisonment of the bird becomes self-perpetuating, and conveniently (for the one keeping the bird caged) self-justifying.
In a similar vein, the immobilization of the bird could also be read as demonstrating just how overwhelming and cruel oppression can be. A bird that is already caged does not need to also have its wings clipped or its feet tied—in this poem, the bird is subjected to all three. The poem, then, serves as a nuanced and damning portrait of all forms of racism and discrimination, and in particular of the racism and oppression perpetrated by the United States against Black people.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-38
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Freedom as a Universal and Natural Right
Even as "Caged Bird" explores the behavior of the free and the captive, it also makes clear that the desire for freedom is an organic, universal impulse that cannot be bound or destroyed. The poem states that the caged bird sings “of things unknown / but longed for still.” The speaker then clarifies: “the caged bird / sings of freedom.” Because freedom is a thing “unknown” to the caged bird, the implication is that the caged bird was not taken from his natural environment, but rather was likely born in his cage and has never known anything else. The caged bird has never known freedom but still understands what freedom is, and yearns for it. That the understanding of freedom seems to be universal suggests that freedom is the natural state of living things.
Given that the caged bird in the poem is an extended metaphor for the historic struggle of the Black community under historical and ongoing racist oppression, the idea that freedom is a biological impulse argues against the inhumane cruelty of oppression. The metaphor also demonstrates the resilience of the black community. Because of the omnipresence of racism throughout the United States history, the poem implies, Black people—like the caged bird—have never experienced true freedom, at least not in the same way that those who are not forced to endure systemic oppression do. That they nonetheless continue longing for this “thing unknown” illustrates that, despite the hopelessness that the metaphor of the caged bird conveys, the Black community’s desire for freedom, and determination to achieve it, remains.
The repetition of the entire third stanza—which also appears, word for word, as the poem’s sixth stanza—further demonstrates the resilience of the black community. In the third stanza, the speaker tells the reader that the caged bird “sings with a fearful trill / of things unknown / but longed for still / and his tune is heard / on the distant hill” which demonstrates that, despite the hopelessness of the situation, the bird continues to sing loudly enough that he is heard from far away, inspiring others. The repetition of the stanza as the sixth and final stanza of the poem conveys that the caged bird does not simply give up, but rather will continue to sing for freedom— thus, this repetition seems to suggest that even as Black Americans endure its intolerable circumstances, it will continue to yearn and work for freedom.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 15-22
- Lines 31-38
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Caged Bird”
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Lines 1-7
A free bird ...
... claim the sky.The first four lines of "Caged Bird" focus on the life of a "free bird"—that is, one that doesn't live in a cage. The free bird is able to "leap / on the back of the wind" and simply float "downstream" without a destination in mind, continuing "till the current ends." These actions demonstrate its easy-going, carefree lifestyle.
The first stanza as a whole also introduces the free-flowing nature of the poem, which lacks a concrete rhyme scheme. This technique reflects the lack of restrictions faced by the free bird. At the same time, the combined use of assonance and consonance allows sounds to flow into one another, further contributing to this bird's sense of unrestricted ease. Note the many /b/, /w/, and /d/ sounds that dominate the stanza, in words like "bird," "back," "wind," "wing," "dips," and "dares."
This free bird is not only able to go wherever it pleases, but its sense of freedom also makes it feel powerful: it "dares to claim the sky." Here, the speaker complicates the previous graceful imagery of the bird by introducing this subtle notion that the free bird believes its freedom gives it permission to claim ownership over something that does not belong to it. This idea (which is repeated later in the poem) is likely an allusion to white colonialism and the American concept of Manifest Destiny, in which white European and American colonizers felt free to take control over land that belonged to others.
This allusion also begins to demonstrate that this poem is an extended metaphor for the oppression faced by marginalized communities (most specifically, by Black people in the United States). The experiences of the free bird are later juxtaposed against those of the caged bird, thus implying that the free bird is a symbol of the privileges afforded to a dominant social group.
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Lines 8-14
But a bird ...
... throat to sing.
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Lines 15-22
The caged bird ...
... sings of freedom. -
Lines 23-26
The free bird ...
... sky his own -
Lines 27-30
But a caged ...
... throat to sing. -
Lines 31-38
The caged bird ...
... sings of freedom.
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“Caged Bird” Symbols
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The Cage
The cage—which is described as "narrow"—holds the bird captive, preventing it from living and moving freely. This cage comes to define the bird and strip it of its identity, indicated by the fact that the bird is referred to as the "caged bird" for the majority of the poem.
As a symbol, the cage is meant to evoke the cultural and historical oppression of Black Americans and their suffering as a result of that oppression—thus, the cage could be seen as representing the literal and legal enslavement of Africans in the United States, which ended in 1865. The cage could also be a representation of the less overt, but still oppressive legal and cultural limitations (such as racial segregation, voter suppression, etc.) imposed on Black people following the end of slavery and into the current day.
The cage can also be seen as a representation of the emotional limitations that Black people have self-imposed out of fear of legal or social retribution. The fact that the cage has come to define the bird's identity (thus making it a caged bird, rather than simply a bird) perhaps represents how race-based oppression reduces people to their race, rather than being fully realized human beings. In turn, this can represent how a marginalized group can come to feel defined by their oppression—how oppression not just limits those who are oppressed, but changes them against their will.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Line 9: “narrow cage”
- Line 11: “his bars of rage”
- Line 15: “caged”
- Line 21: “caged”
- Line 27: “caged”
- Line 31: “caged”
- Line 37: “caged”
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The Free and Caged Birds
The birds in "Caged Bird" can be seen as symbolizing two different racial groups. The caged bird, which has been forced to live its entire life in captivity, can be seen as representing Black Americans, who suffer from racist oppression. The cage holding the caged bird can be seen as symbolizing the bird's oppression, whether in the form of slavery, race-based segregation after the end of slavery, or the more subtle but still pervasive and pernicious forms of oppression that continue to oppress Black communities today. The "bars of rage" through which the bird can't see capture the way that oppression faced by Black people is not just physical, but also emotional and psychological. The caged bird's song recalls Black spirituals and musical traditions, which often focused on a freedom denied to those who were singing them. In all, the caged bird portrays a Black community that has been terrorized by oppression, but that nonetheless continues to year and work for freedom.
The free bird symbolizes the white community, which has oppressed Black people. In particular the way that the free bird assumes that its freedom gives it the right to "claim the sky" seems to capture the way that the white community has and often continues to see the oppression of Black people not as a crime, but rather as a sign of white superiority.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Lines 1-38
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Music
Throughout the poem, there are several mentions of the caged bird's song, which the speaker describes as being "of freedom." Along with the musical quality that is achieved through the meter and sense of rhyme throughout "Caged Bird," the caged bird's song is also a symbolic representation of Black culture, emotions, and resilience.
The song, which is described as being sung with a "fearful trill" about "things unknown, but longed for still" is likely an allusion to Black spirituals, which were sung by those enslaved in the United States prior to the Civil War. Historians consider many of these spirituals— many of which are songs that express Christian values, and the desire to be "freed from sin"— a coded way for the enslaved to express and cope with their suffering under slavery. Thus, the mention of the caged bird's "song" is likely a nod towards the historic suffering of Black people under oppression, as well as a demonstration of a cultural coping method. By extension, the caged bird's "song" could be seen as a representation of profound pain.
The caged bird's song could also be interpreted more metaphorically, perhaps representing an outcry from Black people against their oppression rather than a literal song.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Line 14: “so he opens his throat to sing.”
- Lines 15-22: “The caged bird sings / with a fearful trill / of things unknown / but longed for still / and his tune is heard / on the distant hill / for the caged bird / sings of freedom.”
- Line 30: “so he opens his throat to sing.”
- Lines 31-38: “The caged bird sings / with a fearful trill / of things unknown / but longed for still / and his tune is heard / on the distant hill / for the caged bird / sings of freedom.”
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“Caged Bird” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Allusion
The poem contains allusions to literature and historical events related to the oppression of Black Americans.
The most prominent allusion in the poem is the "caged bird" itself, which Angelou borrows from an earlier poet, Paul Laurence Dunbar. In his poem "Sympathy," Dunbar compares his experience as a Black man to that of a bird in captivity, writing:
I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep coreAngelou's poem clearly builds off of Dunbar's ideas. Dunbar's "Sympathy" was published in 1889, while Angelou's poem was written almost ninety years later, in 1983. By alluding so clearly to Dunbar's poem, Angelou's poem both pays homage to an earlier Black American poet, while also making the forceful argument that the image of the caged bird is still relevant, and by extension, that the racism the cage symbolizes is still alive and well.
The poem also makes an allusion to the slave trade of the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries when it mentions the "trade winds" in line 24. The importation of slaves to the United States was part of a larger Triangular Trade, in which:
- Sugar, tobacco, and raw cotton were shipped from the United States to Europe
- Textiles, rum, and other manufactured goods were brought to Africa
- Slaves were brought to America
These trade routes were significantly influenced by the trade winds, which blow east to west from Africa toward the Caribbean. The reference to the "free bird" thinking of the "trade winds" is part of what makes it clear that the free bird symbolizes white America, which sees its freedom as justifying the exploitation of the rest of the world (or, as the poem puts it, "dar[ing] to claim the sky.")
Finally, the caged bird's song itself is likely an allusion to spirituals, which were created and sung by enslaved Black communities and often expressed a longing for freedom, much like the song of the caged bird. Many people defended slavery by arguing that such spirituals were expressions of joy that implied that slaves were happy with their lot. The poem—building on a tradition of pushback against this racist idea among Black Americans, including Frederick Douglas and Paul Lawrence Dunbar—makes clear that such songs arose not as expressions of joy, but rather of pain. These songs did not justify slavery or other racist oppression, but condemned it.
The bird's song can also be read as an allusion to poetry—specifically to this poem and more generally to the speaker's desire to write poetry. Just as the enslaved Black community expressed longing in their spirituals, so too has the speaker found a way to express their caged life through poetry.
Where allusion appears in the poem:- Line 1: “A free bird”
- Line 7: “and dares to claim the sky”
- Line 14: “so he opens his throat to sing.”
- Line 15: “The caged bird sings”
- Lines 21-22: “for the caged bird / sings of freedom.”
- Line 23: “The free bird thinks of another breeze”
- Line 24: “and the trade winds”
- Line 26: “and he names the sky his own”
- Lines 30-31: “so he opens his throat to sing. / The caged bird sings”
- Lines 37-38: “for the caged bird / sings of freedom.”
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Assonance
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Consonance
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Refrain
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Pathetic Fallacy
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Juxtaposition
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Imagery
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Repetition
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Enjambment
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Extended Metaphor
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End-Stopped Line
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Alliteration
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“Caged Bird” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Back
- Current
- Stalks
- Clipped
- Trill
- Trade winds
Back-
(Location in poem: Line 2: “back”)
The word "back" is often a word used to convey a direction towards the rear end of something— on a human, the rear surface from the shoulders to the hips is called a "back." In the poem, the word personifies the wind, and demonstrates how the wind seemingly carries the bird, almost like how an adult would carry a child on their back.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Caged Bird”
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Form
"Caged Bird" does not follow any specific form. Although it does use features of formal poetry, such as meter and rhyme, these features do not follow any rigid or distinct pattern. Instead, the poem is written in free verse.
The poem contains five stanzas. These stanzas vary in the number of lines they contain, and the length of those lines. The third and sixth stanzas match word-for-word, which puts extra emphasis on those stanzas.
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Meter
"Caged Bird" is written in free verse. However, it does regularly employ iambic meter, which enhances the poem's sense of musicality—a musicality that mirrors the poem's focus on the song of the caged bird. Iambs also create a sense of "rising," since each foot rises from an unstressed to a stressed syllable. This sense of "rising" may also be connected to both the caged bird's song and the general themes of the poem, which are deeply engaged with the goal of both the bird (and of the African American community that the bird symbolizes_ to rise up from their oppression.
While the poem uses a lot of iambic meter, it doesn't exclusively use iambs. The most common variation from iambic meter in the poem occurs when the speaker replaces the unstressed-stressed pattern of an iamb with the unstressed-unstressed-stressed of an anapest. For example, here are the first four lines of the poem:
A free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current endsIn the second line the speaker uses two anapests rather than any iambs, while using one anapest and an iamb in the fourth. In each case, the anapest injects a little more speed and vigor into the line. In these particular lines, that vigor captures the flight of the free bird as it flies and dives on the currents of the wind. In each place where an anapest appears, it adds a jolt of energy that emphasizes that part of the poem.
While anapests are obviously different from iambs in that they contain three syllables rather than two, anapests are considered quite similar to iambic feet because they, too, "rise" from unstressed syllables to stressed syllables; anapests just have one more unstressed syllable.
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Rhyme Scheme
"Caged Bird" has no set rhyme scheme, but it does use rhyme in various ways. For example, the third and sixth stanzas (which are word-for-word identical) mix lines that rhyme perfectly with rhymes that don't:
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedomThe words "trill," "still," and "hill" all rhyme, as do the words "heard" and "bird." But the other three lines in the stanza don't rhyme at all. The lacking rhymes may thematically represent how the caged bird does not truly know the freedom it sings of— thus, it does not match with the rest of the rhymes in the stanza. In addition, in a line with many rhymes, it is actually the words that don't rhyme that are emphasized. So after the four lines of alternating rhymes (still/hill, heard/bird) the reader becomes trained to expect another rhyme, which makes the unrhymed "freedom" hit all the harder.
The speaker also uses slant rhyme at various places in the poem— for example, the entire first stanza uses slant rhyme as its end-rhyme, with the long /ee/ sounds and the /nd/ sounds of the alternating lines chiming:
A free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current endsThe use of slant rhyme throughout the first stanza likely demonstrates the free bird's unrestricted life— just as the free bird is uncaged and able to do as it pleases, the rhyme scheme refuses to box the free bird in. However, the use of slant rhyme still works to uphold the distinct musical quality of the poem.
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“Caged Bird” Speaker
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There is no distinct speaker of this poem; instead, the speaker acts more like a third-person omniscient narrator, able to shift between the perspectives of the caged and free bird.
While the speaker is anonymous and unidentified, the reader could reasonably assume that the speaker, perhaps, empathizes with the caged bird, and perhaps even see themselves as being like a caged bird— hence, their focus on expressing the caged bird's circumstances.
It is reasonable to assume that Maya Angelou—the author of the poem—is the speaker of the poem, given that her work often touches on similar themes and she even wrote a memoir with a very similar title (I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings). That said, in the poem Angelou is not trying to represent her experiences specifically but rather the more general experiences of the Black American community to which she belongs. Given that fact, it is worthwhile to note that there isn't much reason to argue about whether Angelou is the speaker, as the answer either way doesn't yield much more insight into the poem.
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“Caged Bird” Setting
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The setting of "Caged Bird" shifts between the perspectives of the two birds. When the speaker describes the free bird, the setting is generally outside—among the wind, trees, and sun. Beyond those general details, the poem offers no specific location in terms of a setting. This is by design. The lack of specificity helps to make clear that the free bird can go anywhere, can be anywhere—that it is free.
When the speaker describes the caged bird, the setting shifts to the cage. In these stanzas, there is not much else described beyond the cage. This conveys a sense of claustrophobia and sameness, which is the caged bird's entire experience—nothing but the cage.
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Literary and Historical Context of “Caged Bird”
Literary Context
Maya Angelou was a memoirist, poet, and civil rights activist. Though several of Angelou's poems ("Still I Rise," "Caged Bird," and "Phenomenal Woman") remain popular, Angelou was best known for her memoirs. After a period of time as a child during which Angelou refused to speak, she developed a love of language and cited Langston Hughes, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Paul Laurence Dunbar as influences on her writing. Paul Laurence Dunbar specifically inspired several of her major works: alongside "Caged Bird," her most famous memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, draws again from Dunbar's poem "Sympathy." Angelou also wrote a companion piece to Dunbar's poem "We Wear the Mask."
Historical Context
Maya Angelou's work regularly features references to the long-standing oppression of Black Americans. From the early colonial days until 1865, slavery subjected Black Americans to unimaginable physical, emotional, and psychological cruelty. After the abolition of slavery, the oppression of Black communities continued with the institution of racial segregation, racial violence, and more.
As a civil rights activist, Angelou was also deeply affected by Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.'s respective assassinations, which likely informed the complicated sense of hope, determination, and resilience that infuses much of Angelou's work.
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More “Caged Bird” Resources
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External Resources
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The Poem Out Loud — Video of Maya Angelou performing and reading her work.
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Angelou's Life and Work — A brief biography of Maya Angelou by Poetry Foundation.
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"Sympathy" — Paul Laurence Dunbar's poem, which inspired Angelou's image of the "caged bird."
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Angelou at the Presidential Inauguration — A clip of Maya Angelou reading "Still I Rise" at the presidential inauguration of Bill Clinton in 1993.
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An Oprah Interview — A video clip of Maya Angelou being interviewed by Oprah Winfrey in 1993
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Maya Angelou
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